


Cluedo

by neveroffanon



Series: addicts and broken things [5]
Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Beth plays a game, F/M, Happens after 2.11, Obsessive!Rio return, Rio is deceptively soft, So does Rio, This is not the healthiest of relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 19:43:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18879955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveroffanon/pseuds/neveroffanon
Summary: Beth runs a game, and, less obviously, so does Rio.





	Cluedo

Why would she do it?  Haul Mary Pat, blindfolded and ears muffled, to her house, kids screaming in the back, littlest baby wailing like a siren.  Kick the husband out, Ruby out, Annie out, even her own kids— out.  Why would she sit there, tears drying on her cheeks, mother of pearl inlay glinting in the sun on the gun she held cocked at her knee?

Mary Pat herself had no clue.  Beth had always been a little bit of an enigma.  Kind when she should’ve been hard, stupid where she should’ve been savvy.  She was a mother too, though; she knew the stakes.  They were one and the same, she and Beth.  Of course, she had the benefit of having a working brain, and Beth clearly wasn’t letting her head do the talking.

“You know, I really didn’t mean to lead Agent Turner to you three, right?  You know that.  You have to know that,” Mary spoke quietly, trying to keep her eyes from darting too often out to the playhouse where her sons roughhoused. 

“Mary Pat, you’re really something.  That’s what I know,” Beth replied, finger slotting over the trigger of the gun.  Mary Pat watched her finger settle there, and gripped her own together.  

“He was going to figure it out though.  No matter what I said.  Boomer had talked about me to him.  He would’ve started wondering why Boomer had gotten engaged so quickly and then disappeared.  He was going to think I’d done it.”

“You did,” Beth said, voice quiet, finger still steady.  Mary Pat swallowed, looked down at the baby, finally asleep in his bassinet.  Still gazing at him, stomach twisting, she spoke.  “I mean, well, yeah I did.  Of course l did.  He raped me.  Like he tried to do to your sister.  I wasn’t meaning to kill him, but I don’t regret it.  It’s just, I couldn’t let that stop me from taking care of my boys.”

“You could’ve come to us first.  Did you ever think of that?  Maybe coming to us and talking it over?  Instead of trying to run us over like you did _him._ ”  Mary Pat looked up, confused.  “Why would I have done that?”

“Oh I don’t know,” the other woman replied, something coloring her voice.  Making her bite off her words.  “Maybe the fact that we were giving you ten thousand a month. And if you put us away you wouldn’t get any more money!  Welfare doesn’t pay nearly that well Mary Pat.”  The gun shifted, clicked in Beth’s grip, and drew her eyes back down to it.  

It made sense.  She’d been stupid not to see it.  But being poor was better than being in jail.  Of course, now the issue seemed to be that she was about to be dead.  “Well, I didn’t think of it quite like that,” she trailed off.

“Yeah.  You think maybe, just maybe, next time, you could keep your mouth shut?”  Mary watched Beth rise from the lawn chair she’d perched on, lost.  

“What next time?  Weren’t you going to kill me?”

“Oh Mary Pat.  I’m not going to kill you.  You and I, we’re going into business together.  See Agent Turner seems to be taking your crazy ass word as gospel, God help him, and I’d very much like to get out of the shit I find myself in.  You’re going to help me.”

Mary looked up at her, watching Beth’s face, trying to understand what she could be talking about.  “Is this about that guy?”

“What guy?” 

“The guy in the screenshot Agent Turner showed me.  He said he was a person of interest in the area.  When I told him I was worried about Boomer going missing, he asked me if I’d ever see him before.”

“Tall, buzz cut, dressed in black?”

“Yeah,” Mary said, suspicious and curious all at once.  “How’d you know?”

“It doesn’t matter.  Like I said, when the police get here, you and I are going to tell them everything we know.  Why Jeff is dead, how you accidentally ran over Boomer, how he hurt you, and threatened me.  How I got you into counterfeiting, all of it."

“And then what?"

“Until you get out, my family will take care of yours.  They promised it— all of them.  And when you and I have paid our debt, then we’ll be free.  And safe.  We won’t have to worry about men coming to kill us, or put us in debt, or do anything we don’t want them to do.”

She sounded like she believed it.  Beth was, as she’d already realized, a bit soft.  “Why do I have to do any of that?  I mean, yeah, you’ve got a gun pointing at me, but you can’t use it.  Maybe it’s a fake...”

Beth chambered the gun, leveled it back at her.  Mary swallowed.  It was real.  

“So what if don’t play along?  Is this going to be like the first time?  I called the cops if you remember, and you guys folded like, like wet noodles,” Mary flicked a glance at the boys, still gabbling like a bunch of turkeys.  “Are you going to shoot me in front of my boys?  What if I call the cops right now?”  She dug in her pocket for her phone, came up empty.  Checked the other pocket, hands shaking a little.  In front of her, the gun moved, pointed out toward the yard.  

“Kids love phones.  They’re having the time of their lives,” Beth smiled a little.  “And no, Mary Pat.  You’re not going to be shot.  And the cops are already on their way.  Should be here in less than five minutes, actually.”

“This,” Beth joggled the gun in her hand, finger still over the trigger, “is just to make sure you don’t get any funny ideas.”

Considering that she was starting to come up with a funny idea, this was not a stupid move on Beth’s part.  “What if I don’t tell them what you want me to?  What if I tell them you kidnapped me and my sons, with your sister and your friend and forced me to lie?”

“Then your boys go into the system.  That system you’re trying so hard to keep them out of.  Orphanages.  Welfare.  Opportunistic assholes who only want a check and don’t give a damn about your child, if you’re lucky.  Or worse, if you’re not.  Or maybe God will look after your boys and they’ll find the foster family with a heart of gold.  Who knows?  But if I were in your seat, I wouldn’t risk it.”

A little choked off laugh, or a sob, got caught in Mary Pat’s throat.  She swallowed it down, hard.  She could use a gun.  She was a little bigger than Beth, and probably stronger too.  All of Beth’s kids were sweet, not rough like hers.  They didn’t need to have their mother peel them off one another after a fight.  She was soft.

Mary Pat stood, and Beth narrowed her eyes and spread her feet apart.  “Look,” Mary began to say, threading and unthreading her fingers from each other, “that’s a really cute idea you have.  About me and you going away, paying our debt to society, but I really don’t want to do any of it.”

“Is that so?  What do you suggest?”

“Like you can’t actually pin anything on me.  Jeff is long dead now, and he’s in your yard.  So that’s pretty sketchy.  I’ve been talking to the FBI and you guys have been running from them.  So I already look more trustworthy.  I think you should just put the gun away, and I’ll forget the whole kidnapping thing.  And that'll be that.”  Mary took an inching step forward, sidling in front of the bassinet, eyes on the gun pointed at her chest.  

A silence fell.  

Mary Pat realized it was quiet, and her heart began to hammer.  The boys were never quiet.  She turned completely away from Beth and stepped out toward the yard.  Where the children sat, backs to her, obviously fixated on an iPad.  Next to them, was the man from the picture.

He hopped down from the picnic table, and Mary could hear the iPad blasting the PJ Masks theme song.  He strode up, smiling a little.  

“You... what are you doing here?” Elizabeth hissed at him, and Mary drew back a little to look at her.  “How did you know to come here?”

“I got eyes watching, mami.  It wasn’t too bad as ideas go, but if you woulda told me...” he trailed off, one eyebrow raised.  

“Oh like what?  If I’d asked, you would’ve _taken care_  of it?  Who says I would’ve wanted you to?”  Mary looked between them, and backed away, bent down and reached her fingers for the bassinet.  The man, whoever he was, saw her and stepped around Beth.  

“So this is you, huh?  Crazy comes in all the flavors.”  Mary rocked back on her heels, looked away from him.  Jeff had said something like that.  Once.  

“I don’t know what you mean,” Mary brought herself to say, and sank into the chair she’d abandoned.  He pressed close, leaning over her, close enough she could see the brown of his eyes.  “You been playin games, Miss Mary Pat,” he grinned at her.  

"Your fiancé been looking for you, girl.  You don’t want him no more?”  She jerked away from him, slammed her back into the wood slats of the lawn chair and stayed pressed there.  He chuckled and backed away.  “That’s a no.  Fair enough.”

“Fiancé?  Wha— Boomer’s dead,” Beth said, voice raised like she thought they were both losing their minds.  Mary Pat and the man looked at each other, and she watched his eyes crinkle around the edges.  He was amused.  

“Nah mami.  Our good buddy is living it up.  Miss Mary Pat ran him over, didn’t you, sweetheart?  And then tied him up and left him to rot.  Shoulda killed him, straight up.  Now,” and he stood, smile still lingering, “guess who’s back.  Back again.”

“How is this a good thing?” Beth’s voice was shrill enough to make the baby stir and Mary reached down to rock him, pressed her hand over his little head, hoping he wouldn’t wake.   He settled, and she raised her eyes to find the man and Beth facing each other.

“What do you want?  I’m not going to be able to get out of this, but neither is she.  We made sure of it—.”

“Is that right?  You got an alibi for the time she did for the man in the bag, Elizabeth?”

“It was months and months ago; she told us her husband died before we started doing the secret shopper thing.”

“Prints?  Witnesses?  Proof you didn’t kill him?  Think it through Elizabeth.  There’s only one way. You handle it now, or your ass is doing time.”

“And if I don’t care about that?”

 "What, now all a sudden you don’t care about those kids?”

“Dean can handle it all.  His mother will help, and Annie and Ruby.  He was going to take them anyway, in the divorce.  And I would’ve lost, because I’m a housewife with no skills and no income.  Nothing is in my name.  Not a damn thing.”

“I might be willing to help,” Mary called over to them.  She’d watched them, edging closer to each other, until they were nearly close enough to kiss.  It made sense, in a weird way.  Beth couldn’t have put her hands on that kind of money unless she had a backer.  He was the corporate office.

“I’d be happy to help.  If I don’t have to see Boomer again, that is,” Mary said the last part, a bit quieter.  

“Here’s the problem, Mary Pat,” Beth swung away and marched toward her, “you lied.  So anything you have to say is going to be a little hard to believe.”

“I don’t see why I can’t help.  We can put the blame on Boomer.  Make him go away for all of it.  You and I get to keep taking care of our kids.”

A low laugh interrupted her.  “Mary Pat.  This ain’t no time be making plans with the kids.  See, a little bird told me you went on the record talking bout how Elizabeth and the girls did for Boomer.  But on that day, at that time, Elizabeth has an alibi.  So does Ruby.  So does Annie,” he tilted his head, looking at her, and Mary shivered.   She looked at her hands, not wanting to look into his eyes any more.  

“It all falls apart from there, sweetheart.  If Elizabeth didn’t kill him, if Boomer ain’t dead,” he smiled again, eyes disappearing with the wideness of it, “then who’s the man in the bag?”

Mary kept her eyes on her hands, clenched her fingers together until the tips grew white.  She could either get up and do something about this and probably get shot or she could wait them out.  Waiting was smarter.  So she sat and let her eyes well up, which was easy enough.  She looked up, and a tear rolled down her face.  

“No tears, please.  They’re my weakness,” the man laughed.  Then the laughter died, he lifted his shirt and pulled out a gun, and waved it at her.  Mary stood slowly, watching the muzzle rise with her.  

“So.  You got two choices.  One choice means time.  You got homicide, counterfeiting, assault.  Your boys’ll be looked after, and you’ll get ‘em back when you’re out.  Second choice, you write a note, take this gun, and pull the trigger.  Boys’ll still be safe.”

Mary felt her mouth drop open, and suddenly it was like a hand had gripped her around the ribs and squeezed.  She gaped at him, staring, unable to breathe.  She heard Elizabeth crying out like the other woman was a mile away.  

“What?  What the hell?  You can’t do that!”

“You know what I can’t do Elizabeth?  Oh wait, there ain’t nothing I can’t do.”

“I’m not going to let you do this,” Beth spat the words out.  “I’ll—.”

“You’ll what?  Testify?  To which part?  Conspiracy to commit murder?  Grand theft auto?  Counterfeiting?  Transport of illegal substances across an international border?  Which part honey?  Who goes down with you if you do?  Because it ain’t just gonna be me.  You know that.  Or you should.”

He leaned toward Elizabeth, raised a hand to her cheek.  Beth turned away.  He _hummed_ a laugh, the sound ugly, and it made Mary want to scream.  She looked out at the yard.  The boys were still mesmerized.  She looked back to the man, whoever he was, and steeled herself, and took a step.  

Neither of them noticed, and she inched forward again.  Then she leapt on him, or meant to.  He jerked away, and she slammed into the concrete of the patio.  Mary rolled over, groaning, her hands and arms stinging.  Beth knelt next to her, eyebrows tight knit, and she opened her mouth to speak.  Mary spat at her, watched her jerk away, grabbed the gun Beth had been stupid enough to lay down, and pointed it at her.  

“Get up!” Mary barked the words, feeling better already.  Her hands were still smarting, but at least nothing felt broken.  Beth leaned away from her, and stood up slowly.  

“Mary Pat, this isn’t a good idea.  Do you really think he is just going to let you point a gun at me?” Beth shot a glance at the man, but Mary stepped close and pressed the muzzle against her chest.  “If you think he can stop me when I’m this close, you’re not too good with physics.”  

Beth huffed a breath, and raised her eyebrows.  Mary shrugged.  Beth, like she’d thought, didn’t always think it through.  “Now if you could just pass me the keys to the van, I’ll be out of your hair and we can all just have a very nice day.”

“Sweetheart,” the man began to say.  

“Don’t call me that!  I’m not your sweetheart.  Where do you get off talking to me like that anyway?  Do you think women like being called that?  Or honey?  Like I’m a child?  Shut up.”

He looked at her for a long moment, gun down at his side.  And then he sat, next to the bassinet.  Mary blinked.  And felt a tremor run from her head to her toes, like ice sliding down her spine. She pressed the gun harder into Beth’s chest, but the tremor was in her arm, it was in her hand.  He crossed his legs, the gun glinting in the sun, pointing toward the baby.  

She cleared her throat, looked at Beth, who stared at her, her fear reflecting back.  “N... Don’t... don’t do that.”  

He didn’t reply, but to shift position a little.  In the background, she could hear the intro beginning for another episode.   _Catboy! Owlette! Gekko!_   She hauled in a breath and another.  “I’ll shoot her.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?  I said I’ll _shoot_ her.  Aren’t you guys, you know?  Messing around?  Do you want me to shoot her?!”  Mary stared at him, glanced at Beth, saw the angry red skin under the muzzle of the gun, and pressed it harder.  Beth winced.  

“Sometimes dead is better,” he replied and bounced the knee that the gun rested on, eyes locked on hers, and tilted his head.  “But darlin, when you shoot, so will I.”

Mary shook her head.  She shuddered, mind racing.  Beth had said the cops were coming.  But that had been ages ago.  She hadn’t heard a thing.  Maybe Beth had been lying.  Maybe this guy had held them up.  Maybe none of it mattered.  Because he was right.  Sometimes dead was better.  Jeff was dead.  Boomer ought to have been dead, but she’d had the kids right there, and there was that whole FBI thing.  Abandoning him had seemed safer.  At least then, he’d be far away.  And now he was back, and if he caught wind of where she was, he’d find her and do it all over again.  If he started to get angry enough, he might even hurt the boys.  

Lips trembling, she looked down at the youngest one.  

“You swear?” Mary asked him.  

“Cross my heart, sweetheart.”  She grimaced, but ignored it.  Beth shuffled away from her, hands raised, eyes wide, and Mary made her decision in that moment.  If she had to be taken away from her kids, then so would Beth.  

She checked the safety, wrapped her finger around the trigger, and pulled it.  The _pop_  was so quiet, even the baby didn’t notice it.  Beth sank to her knees, mouth open, but silent.  Mary Pat glanced at the man, who sat forward, all his smooth coldness gone.  She smiled into his face, watched him begin to lift and point the gun, as he’d promised, at her son.  She raised her hand to her temple, pulled the trigger again.  

The last thing she heard was sirens.  

* * *

When she opens her eyes: huge, leaden, deceptively soft, he feels it.  Right where he doesn’t want to.  Right where he can’t.  So he holds still.  Forces himself to it.  Breathes in and out and waits for her mind to catch up to her body.  When it does, she jerks away from him and hisses, left hand cupping the bandage-thickened area between her shoulder and her neck.  

“What are you doing here?  Where is she?”  She asks, eyes snapping fire, even as he can feel her tremble.  Pretending not to be afraid.  He wonders how long has she been doing it, that all that’s left to show the truth is a shiver he can only feel sitting right up on her.  

“You think I didn’t know about Annie?”  He asks her in turn and watches and feels the tremor become a quake.  Her lips bow into something resembling a line, before she parts them to speak.  

“She was acting weird, when we went to find Mary Pat,” she slides her hand down to her lap.  “So I figured something had happened and even though I wasn’t counting on you _compromising_ her like we’re in some sort of spy movie or you figuring it out that quickly,” she shoots back, still shivering.  “I thought I’d make the best of it...”

“So you pinning me for Mary Pat wasn’t the plan?  But it became the plan.”  He waits, because that is the only explanation.  She risked never going home to her kids again, to evade lockup and get out from under him.   She was, would always be, a boss.  

“It wouldn’t have stuck.  I put some of her hair in the bag with his body.  I thought you had Boomer’s somewhere so safe, no one would be able to find it, which I guess is still true,” she stops, looking up at him.  

“Sorry.”

He laughs, despite himself.  Only Elizabeth would apologize for trying to put him away again.  They were back where they had started.  She stares at him, looking like she might begin to speak again, and he leans in, brushes his lips across hers.  And it is still good, still better than it has any reason to be.  He feels when she lets go, and lets himself drift away in it, because even if she can’t be trusted to follow orders, he knows this woman.  Knows she wants him, everything about him, and that’s enough to begin with.

He pulls away, watches her face, and when she opens her eyes, traces her lower lip with a thumb.  “You and me, we gotta stop.  You know that.”

“You’re the one late to the party.  Not me,” she murmurs, eyes still wide.  She holds his gaze, as warm as that day in her bedroom, and just as cold.  “You want to own me.  And that’s not how this works.”

“Oh darlin, you ain’t special.  I want to own it all,” he says the words, rousing the fire in his belly and in her eyes.  “And you gonna help me.  We gonna get what we need from the world and then we gonna walk away.”

“Meaning what?”

He laughs a little.  She’s still _mama_  even laid up in a hospital bed.  She’s got to know it all, can’t trust nobody to care for herself.  “I have a business proposition for you,” he says, and settles a hand over her left.

* * *

“So you pay your debt, like this right?  You get me info from this Fed, and we even.  No cash to wash, no pills to pay back.”

She looks at him, looking like Elizabeth and not, all at once.  She’s a kid sister, sure enough.  But she ain’t a child, and even children know to make amends after a fuck up.  On purpose or on accident.  He waits a moment, then her lips firm and she nods.  

“Ruby will be off the hook too, right?” She asks, voice solid.  

“You know it.  And if you do this right, I’ll see about setting you up with something quiet,” he means it too.  She’s got balls and bills to pay.  She’s struggling just as much as the rest of her crew.  More even.  She gives him a smile as bright as her sister’s and salutes him before slipping around him to lay a kiss on her sister’s cheek.  

Rio leans against the window, watching them in the reflection. Elizabeth wakes up slow, but she does wake and hugs her sister as close as she can.  Over her shoulder, she opens her eyes on him.  Something more than lust, a little shy of love, settles over her face.  And it’s enough to start with.

**Author's Note:**

> So! This happened. Mary Pat took me in an unexpected direction today, and I can only hope I wrote something that seems like it could be true to the characters. Questions and concrit (please be kind though) are welcome, as I’m not sure I made everything quite as clear as I should have. Hope you enjoyed the ride!!


End file.
